Slovakian photographer Lucia Nimcová has been documenting the everyday lives of women and girls in Central and Eastern Europe — here are 20 photos from this engaging work.

Instant Women

Photographs by

Lucia Nimcova

Lucia Nimcová was one
of 22 young promising photographers invited by the Asia-Europe Foundation
to participate in a photo forum in Paris. Each photographer
represented a different country from Asia and Central or Eastern Europe.
It was a remarkable conference, filled with inspiring new work, fresh
ideas and lively exchanges about how rapidly things are changing in the
world.

Nimcová brought several bodies of work-in-progress to share. “Instant
Women” is an ongoing project documenting women of all ages in current-day
post-communist countries.

After she returned to her home in Slovakia, we conducted a brief interview
via email. Here are some excerpts:

First of all, will you provide some background on this cycle
of work?

I have been documenting the life of women in Central and Eastern Europe
since 2002. I began as a student, because I wanted to find answers to
my personal questions. I needed to deal with the fact that I am a woman
and through my work I was searching for what it is to be a woman in Slovak
society. I came to moments and answers I was looking for, but my view
on the topic is changing every year. I could say I have been working on
"Instant Women" for four years, but I still have only 20 photos.
Some new ones are appearing and others are disappearing from the selection…

Did you have a specific goal in mind when you set out at the
start of this project? Is it social documentary?

When I started I set around 40 questions or themes, which I would like
to talk about. Of course I often found something completely different.
You can plan some things, but everything is determined by the place and
time. In 2003 I received a grant from the IVO (Slovak National Institute
of Public Affairs) to contribute to a sociological publication about Slovakia
— A Pictorial Report on the State of the Country —
so you can say it is social documentary. I am always trying to not fit
to only one box … but be simple, although with many meanings.

You seem able to capture wonderful images where people are
not guarded or too self-conscious. They reveal themselves to you and the
camera. How are you able to accomplish that in so many diverse situations?

I always try to be open with the people I am documenting. I am not a thief,
I try to be part of their life for a while. It is important for me to
work as a particular person, not as an anonymous photographer. It is a
never-ending fight with topic, content, form and my own conscience. It
is important to believe in what I do … people usually feel it.

Why do you name this series Instant Women? Does it mean that
girls become women quickly? Or that women are different every instant?

It means every photo is an instant answer in every variant you could think
about. I do not like definitive truths. I am fascinated by the simplicity
of inexplicable matters. The fact that I show only one side does not mean
the other one is not existing. Instant women are my instant truths in
particular time and space.

A stunning series of portraits of people — shortly before and just after they die — is touring Europe now, and tackling one of the biggest remaining taboos in Western societies. Photos by Walter Schels, text by Beate Lakotta.